GRAPHIC DESIGN USA
2024 health and wellness design awards
KENAI THERAPEUTICS
strengthening connections
Kenai Therapeutics is a biotech developing breakthrough treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. By replacing neurons, patients can achieve an earlier stage in their deterioration, improving their quality of life and providing them with valuable time.
scope
Brand Identity
Brand Strategy
Art Direction
Digital Marketing
collaborators
Kelli Berg
the challenge
Along with a new brand, Kenai needed a strong foundational strategy to link their cutting-edge science to a seemingly unrelated name. ‘Kenai’, referring to a place in Alaska, was inherited, and didn’t have any overt connection to the biotech’s mission.
the solution
Through a process of intentional listening, deep research and broad creative thinking, Pinkergreen uncovered conceptual and visual connections between Kenai, our client and Kenai, the place. We crafted a custom brand story, a visual strategy, and an identity, based upon the connection between the two.
Inspired by the symmetrical reflections of the Alaskan landscape, and deeply rooted in Kenai Tx’s focus on neural health.
strategic brand narrative
Kenai is a peninsula in southeastern Alaska, renowned for its diverse aquatic ecosystems. These waterways are interrelated and in harmony–fluid lifelines, connecting people, ideas, and resources. Fishing is critical to the area: environmentally for a healthy ecosystem, financially for the economy, and culturally to the indigenous community. Salmon is particularly important to native Alaskans, representing rebirth, transformation, renewal, and hope.
This kind of connection is vital to a wholesome, fulfilling experience: human kinship, interconnectivity in nature, neurons and synapses in the brain. Just as Kenai, Alaska’s headwater, groundwater, and wetlands are all integral to the thriving ecosystem, a healthy brain relies on robust neural networks where synapses can flow freely. The Kenai Therapeutics treatment is innervating, replacing neurons, strengthening pathways, and reviving healthy connections throughout the brain. The procedure enables patients to continue to connect with their families and plan for their future, restoring possibility, creativity, and hope.
We found numerous visual commonalities between Kenai’s neuroscience and Kenai, Alaska. The brand identity is inspired by the symmetrical reflection of the Kenai river landscape and rooted in neural health. Gentle curving forms come together like neural connections, with a synaptic gap in between. The landscape-inspired palette instills optimism and hope. The custom illustration style references winding rivers and topography, and layers of tissue and ridges in the brain.
